


Time Changes Everything

by modernpatroclus



Series: Four Years Strong [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 4x10 spec, F/M, Kinda, Time Travel AU, post 4x09
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5395886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(post-4x09)<br/>After they’re attacked by the ghosts in the limo, Felicity is rushed to the hospital. The bullet leaves Felicity in a coma, and she may never wake up.<br/>But Oliver, stubborn as he is, refuses to accept this. He has yet another terrible idea: Time travel.<br/>He calls on Barry to go back and ensure that Felicity doesn’t get shot. But something goes wrong, and Oliver wakes up in a completely different Star City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If you're gonna be the death of me, that's how I wanna go

**Author's Note:**

> I'm combining two ideas for this story: A 4x10 spec-fic and a time travel AU. I've wanted to write that one for a long time, but it wasn't until after 4x09 aired that it gave me the idea of how to start it.  
> The first chapter's title is from "Collar Full" by Panic! At The Disco.

He’s in shock. He can’t do anything but sit there, in the middle of the cold, dark street. Christmas lights flicker in the distance, like some sort of cruel mockery of the happiness that was just ripped from him moments before.

Then he moves, his hands frantically searching for the bullet wound, desperately trying to stem the bleeding. She should not be bleeding, her blood should be inside her body, pumping through her veins, alive and well and _happy._ Not bleeding out on the cold dark pavement on Hannukah.

She’s the one who is never supposed to be hurt. Felicity Smoak started as an innocent, even more so than the rest of them. He knows she had some darkness in her past, though he doesn’t know the full extent of what happened. But still,

And as he reaches shaking, bloody hands toward his phone to call an ambulance – because there’s no way in _hell_ he’d be able to drive right now – Oliver can feel himself slipping back into that dark place. He’s blaming himself, it’s all his fault, he brought her into this life.

But it doesn’t matter that if she was awake right now, she’d be chastising him, telling him not to go back down that well-traveled, lonely road again. She wouldn’t let him blame himself. She’d tell him he’s come too far to revert to old habits now (if only she knew the truth: he already has).

But none of it matters right now, because she can’t tell him any of those things. She’s too busy bleeding out on the street.

Without her, he’s in total darkness, blind with no guidance to help him along.

And as he waits, he notices that she has been far too still for too long.

“No. No no no no. Felicity! Felicity, open your eyes,” he sobs, coming back to himself just enough. “You need to stay with me, you can’t leave me, please.” But the only indications that Felicity was still alive were her pulse, which was growing fainter with every horrible minute wasting her life, and a sudden cough she gives, which causes even more of her blood to spill from her stained lips.

The light of his world, the fire inside of her, is slowly being snuffed out. And he can’t do a goddamn thing about it.

Except wait.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. He’s lost all track of time and ability to reason. Because she’s what enables him to do all of those things, to keep his head on straight, to function properly.

But finally, _finally_ he sees an ambulance, sirens blaring – an indication of his state of shock, that he didn’t even hear it – speeding towards them. It halts and medics barrel out of the back, pulling a stretcher with them.

“Sir, we’re going to need you to move away from her,” one of them says to him, and Oliver briefly feels an irrational urge to fight them on it, to stay right there holding her, the only thing he can do. But his sense returns long enough for him to realize that she needs them right now, not him. He feels helpless, having saved so many lives but not hers.

Once she’s loaded into the back of the ambulance, Oliver doesn’t hesitate to climb in too, the look he sends the protesting medic enough to wisely shut him up. The ride feels like an eternity, hopelessly watching on as they try to stem the bleeding until they get to the hospital.

When they get to the hospital, again Oliver is forced to the back as they take her away from him, just out of reach but still in sight through the glass windows. It’s the same area he was in when Thea was brought in after being stabbed, the eerie similarities enough to chill him to the bone, despite his protests that he never gets cold.

It brings him back with painful clarity to when he’d found Thea bleeding out in the loft. He could tell she’d dragged herself across the floor from the blood smeared across it, handprints included. It’d reminded him later of the painted handprint she’d given him in first grade, and it’d made him sick to think about what happened to the sweet little girl. Thea had been able to fight back, to try and get help.

But Felicity was out cold by the time he opened the door.

Thea barely survived the sword, and Oliver knew that this time, he may not be so lucky. Thea told him how Nyssa destroyed the Lazarus Pit after they brought Sara back. But even if it weren’t Oliver can’t bear the thought of putting Felicity through that, her pure soul being tainted with bloodlust for a nameless, faceless ghost.

He knows he’d do anything for Felicity, but right now, standing in the hospital corridor, watching her being worked on by a frenzy of doctors, all shouting things that he only understands enough to realize it’s _not good_ , he feels more helpless and hopeless than any day spent on the island.

* * *

“We’ve done everything we can. Whether she wakes up now is entirely up to her.” The doctor’s words, though sympathetic, sound cold and robotic in his head. His entire world has just fallen apart from a single bullet.

And all he can think is that it’s his fault.

If he hadn’t moved, maybe he would’ve gotten shot instead of her. Maybe the ghosts would have left eventually, assuming them both dead.

But in the moment, all he wanted to do was get them _out_ of there. He wanted to put as much distance between the gunmen and Felicity Smoak as possible.

But, like every other choice he makes, it was the wrong one.

* * *

There are so many people he should call, starting with Donna. They all think Oliver and Felicity are home by now, celebrating their engagement. But it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

But perhaps it was on the news by now, the shooting. After all, they are very much under the public eye, and it was out in the middle of the streets. Someone was bound to have heard it.

He hadn’t even looked at his phone since calling the ambulance.

He’s been sitting next to her since they let him in, grasping her too-cold hand tightly in both of his, his forehead pressed hard to them in an effort to _feel something_.

Numbness set in as soon as the doctor told him she may not ever open those beautiful blue eyes again. God, why didn’t he tell her more how beautiful she was? Because she knew she was, and she knew he did, too, so he never felt the need to constantly reassure her. He always showed his appreciation in the way he’d stare at her, like he was a blind man seeing the sun for the first time.

And now that she might be gone forever, he feels like a man who’s just gone blind. Everything was so vivid, so bright, but when he opened that car door, everything slowly faded to gray.

Until he heard the news; now everything is pitch black and he is alone in the darkness, utterly lost without his light.

A thought hits him suddenly, so obvious it leaves his mind reeling, back to last week in Central City. Barry had time traveled again.

And without a second thought, Oliver has his phone to his ear as he waits for his last hope.

His voice sounds after the second ring.

“Hey, Oliver?” Barry says, it coming out more like a question.

“Barry, I need your help.” And no sooner does Oliver have the words out than does he hear the sound of wind blowing through the receiver.

“I’m on my way. Where are you?”

“Starling General.” With that, Oliver hangs up and waits.

* * *

He lifts his head from their intertwined hands at the sound of footsteps.

Panting, Barry walks up to Oliver, eyes wide and scared at the sight of Felicity laying in a hospital bed.

“What the hell happened?” Barry asks, fear plain as day on the younger man’s face.

“We were attacked by Darhk’s ghosts. She was shot,” Oliver explains, not looking away from the ring on her finger. It feels so long ago now that he put it on her. Was it really only a few hours ago?

“Oh my god,” Barry says, stumbling slightly on his way around the bed to the other chair. “So what can I do to help?”

“I need you to do something you won’t like,” Oliver warns, finally looking up and meeting Barry’s eyes.

“I’ve had to do a lot of things I haven’t liked with you, Oliver. Name it,” Barry promises. But Oliver knows how much he’s asking.

“I need you to go back in time for me.” Silence hangs in the air for a few seconds, thick with tension.

“Oliver . . .” Barry says finally, his name coming out in a tired sigh.

“I know it’s dangerous, I know. But Barry, I can’t-“ he breaks off, tears burning his eyes, prompting him to look back down at their hands. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes before trying again.

“I _can’t_ lose her. Please.” Oliver looks back up at Barry then, letting him see every raw emotion inside of him: Grief, anger, confusion, terror. His eyes are a storm of all of the feelings trying to drown him. But for once, instead of trying to fight the tide alone, Oliver looks for a life raft.

Barry stares right back, considering the weight of his request. With a last sigh, Barry throws him that raft.

“I’ll do it. But Oliver, I can’t guarantee what’ll happen,” he warns.

Oliver lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and says, “Anything’s better than this.”

* * *

“Okay, I’m ready,” Barry says over the comms, standing suit-clad in the middle of the street where the attack happened.

“Good luck, Barry,” Oliver offers, because it’s all he has left to give. He gives Felicity’s hand a final squeeze as he waits, unsure but hopeful.

He knows she wouldn’t approve of his plan.

She’d tell him he’s being ridiculous, that her life is nowhere near worth the risk of the millions of things that could go wrong. That her life ending like this is worth it, because she’s gotten to help save people, and she spent her last day with him, _happy_.

And she’d be right: He has no way of knowing what will happen, that it won’t end in disaster.

But she’d also be wrong: Heknows that _he has to_ _try_ ,he has to _do something,_ because she is worth every single goddamn thing that happened in his shitty life, if they were what it took to bring him to her. Because Oliver Queen isn’t Oliver Queen without Felicity Smoak.

The ground suddenly starts to shake under Oliver’s feet. The world around him is caving in on itself as time itself changes.

Everything goes black, and this time, he gratefully gives in.


	2. Out of key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry's done it: He's changed the timeline.  
> Oliver wakes up the next day, and he... remembers? He shouldn't be able to remember anything.  
> And why does everything feel so off? Messing with time (again) proves that one choice affects everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your amazing feedback on the first chapter! I'm so glad you guys are excited about this story.  
> This chapter is the last kind of introductory one. After, it'll get more interesting, I promise.  
> Enjoy!

Oliver wakes with a start. His sheets are drenched in sweat, and he’s got chills. He sits up and looks around the room. A sharp gasp leaves him when he recognizes where he is. He’s back in the Foundry, before Felicity remade it, when it was just a dingy basement in an abandoned warehouse.

_But how . . . ?_

Then he remembers: Barry erased the timeline. But he shouldn’t be able to remember, right? Last time in Central City he’d completely forgotten the fight Barry said he’d had with Felicity.

She’s the whole reason Oliver had Barry go back in time. If she’s not okay, then none of it even matters.

He jumps up from the cot – which wasn’t there until after the Foundry was remade – and makes for the stairs, ready to find out the consequences of what he’d done.

When he gets up to the club portion, he receives another shock: Verdant doesn’t exist. The warehouse is still just that.

Shaking his head and promising to look into it later, he heads outside into the cold December morning. At least, he’s assuming it’s still December. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a phone entirely different from the one he called Barry on mere minutes – or that’s what it feels like – ago. Instead, he finds an untraceable phone like the one he’d had before he’d returned from the dead, when he was still trying to talk himself into it.

Ignoring the growing dread in his veins, Oliver clicks a button and the screen lights up. The date he sees leaves him even more confused: It’s December 10th, 2015. So if it’s the same time that he left, why is the Foundry like it was when he first came home, all the way back in 2012?

Something’s wrong, he knows it. He hasn’t slept in the Foundry since before moving in with Thea last year. And it doesn’t have either the equipment Felicity bought for it, or the remnants of SCPD’s raid in May.

He doesn’t know what went wrong, but there’s one person Oliver has to find first. Taking a deep breath, he heads for his bike. He’s going to find Felicity.

And if he’s right, she should still be an IT girl for his family’s company.

* * *

Oliver tries to hide his shock at being back inside Queen Consolidated. He’s been here plenty of times recently, from visiting Felicity at work or going to see her about some Darhk-related problem or other.

But it’s just like it was when he first came home – meaning the CEO is less blonde and babbly, and more ex-stepfather Walter Steele.

He can feel people blatantly staring as he walks to the elevator, but Oliver ignores them all. He needs to find Felicity; he needs to make sure she’s all right.

He finally reaches her old office, but the person sitting at her desk is definitely _not_ Felicity.

“Yeah, can I help you?” the thirty-something man at the desk asks, distractedly, not even sparing Oliver a glance. He has his feet propped up next to him and he’s staring at the screen.

Oliver clears his throat, trying to show this guy that his time is not to be wasted. “Where’s Felicity Smoak?”

The guy just responds with a, “Who?” still not looking up.

Oliver steps closer to the desk, his shadow falling over it. He crosses his arms over his chest and says (in his “Arrow-voice,” as Felicity calls it), Felicity Smoak. Where. Is. She?”

The guy flinches, scrambling to sit up straight, and finally looks at Oliver. He can tell the second recognition dawns on him, because the guy pales considerably.

“You’re – you’re,” he begins, dumbstruck, but Oliver cuts him off.

“Oliver Queen, stepson of the CEO, ex-castaway. Yeah, I know. Now tell me where I can find Felicity Smoak,” he says, his impatience clear.

The guy shakes his head and says, “I don’t know a Felicity Smoak. I’ve worked here for five years, and I’ve never worked with a ‘Felicity.’ But . . . you’re supposed to be dead! You were killed in that boating accident eight years ago! How are you alive?”

And then Oliver’s suspicions are confirmed. He realizes why everything has felt so off: He never came back from the dead.

Schooling himself as best he can, Oliver ignores his question and says, “I have to go,” walking out of the room without so much as a glance back at the man, who, Oliver now realizes, looks just like he saw a ghost.

Oliver runs out of the building and jumps on his bike, determined to get away from the building before the man recovers from his shock and has Channel 7 on his bumper. That is not what he needs right now.

No, what he needs is to find out more about this reality. Why didn’t he come back? Are Tommy and his mother still alive? Why doesn’t Felicity work for QC? And more importantly, where _is_ she?

* * *

Back in the Foundry, Oliver pulls up the old computer. He frowns when he realizes that the system is back to its old, way outdated format.

He never realized at the time just how much Felicity’s presence on the team helped. He wonders how he’s been getting along saving the city without her.

And then he realizes something else that’s obviously changed: Diggle. He never came back from the dead, so his mother never hired him as a bodyguard. So where is _he?_ Still working private security gigs for other families?

Everything he doesn’t know about this world is gnawing at him, and Oliver suddenly understands why Felicity always hated mysteries so much. He doesn’t know anything, so he can’t fix it.

The computer finally loads, and Oliver wastes no time in looking for Felicity. What he finds would’ve made his legs give out if he hadn’t already been sitting.

 _Dead_.

With tears burning his eyes, shaking hands, and that small ball of dread morphing into all-consuming terror, Oliver clicks on the article from six years ago. He blinks back the tears and reads, waiting for his worst fears to be confirmed.

_“Prisoner Felicity Megan Smoak, 19, former senior and Computer Sciences major at MIT, was found dead in her cell last week, on the night of November 5th, 2009. The genius-level student was arrested the week prior, shocking the school community. Her boyfriend, 19 year old Cooper Seldon, had been apprehended by the authorities following evidence of illegal hacking activity traced back to him. He had been awaiting trial when the distraught girlfriend reportedly confessed to having written the program that Seldon used to attempt to wipe out all loans of current students enrolled at the university. Smoak was then arrested and awaiting a trial alongside her boyfriend. But last night, a guard found her dead in her cell; she hung herself. Her body was taken immediately from the facility to an undisclosed location by authorities.”_

Oliver stares at the screen, hope he can’t afford welling in his chest.

If this universe is parallel to his, then he knows who can help him find Felicity.

* * *

“Mr. Queen. What a surprise,” Waller’s voice says, her back to him but the smirk noticeable nonetheless.

“Amanda, I need your help,” Oliver says, getting right to the point. He _needs_ to find her, to make sure she’s okay. And he still needs to find out what else has changed about his life. His not coming back from the dead must have had huge consequences, and he’s not sure how many he’s ready to face.

“I don’t believe I owe you any favors,” she says bluntly, turning to face him, eyebrow raised.

“You don’t. But you’re going to help me, or this secret base? Won’t stay so secret anymore,” he threatens. He knows it’s not his best, but it’s all he can come up with on the spot.

Waller’s eyebrow goes even higher, and she turns away from him to gesture the other people working in the room out. Then, she turns back to him and steps closer to him, her heels echoing in the now silent room, save for the buzz of the computers.

“Is that so, Mr. Queen? And how would you do that? You’re forgetting that you’re still dead.”

He steps forward, matching her loathing gaze. “Oh, trust me, I’m not. I’m ready to come back now, and when I do, the press will be all over me. They’ll listen to every word I say. And if I reveal a secret government facility with less than legal methods to the public, they’ll come.”

The room is silent for a full minute as they stare each other down, the room thick with tension. Oliver is determined, though, and she’s going to help him.

“What do you want, Mr. Queen?”

“I need you to find someone for me. Like me, the world thinks she’s dead, and I don’t have the proper equipment to track her down. You do. I’m not asking a lot.”

Waller sighs, still managing to sound more robotic than tired. “Be that as it may, Mr. Queen, I am not in the business of handing out favors. _Or_ responding to threats,” she says, pausing to glare at him again. “But I suppose I could look into this for you. The press having a field day over us aside, I can’t have you getting yourself killed when you inevitably get caught.” She smirks. “You can still be useful to me in the future,” she says, that smirk widening, and Oliver hates everything it entails.

But she agreed, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Now who is it that I’m looking for?”

“Felicity Smoak.” He sees the second recognition dawns on her face.

“Ah, Miss Smoak. I know exactly where to find her. She, like you, has proven . . . useful, let’s call it, since the world proclaimed her dead six years ago.”

The look on her face has Oliver’s stomach roiling. Waller has had Felicity _work_ for her here. Whatever she’s had her do can’t be good, judging by past experience of just how useful someone the world believes dead can be to Amanda Waller.

“Where. Is. She?” Oliver growls, eliminating all remaining space between them as he goes nearly chest to chest.

Waller laughs, despite not knowing the extent of Oliver’s relationship with Felicity.

“She works for the NSA, Mr. Queen. They are the ones who had her proclaimed dead instead of imprisoned. She’s quite remarkable,” she says, and Oliver remembers a conversation in the early days of his relationship with Felicity. But coming from Waller, the sentiment doesn’t feel quite as genuine.

Waller’s voice brings him back to the present. “They needed her abilities for some mission or other. I don’t know the details. But like I said, she has worked for me in the past. I already know where to find her.”

Oliver scowls and, in what Felicity would call his ‘Arrow voice,’ says, “Tell me!”

Waller laughs at the desperation detectable in his persona. “Patience, Mr. Queen. Miss Smoak doesn’t take too kindly to uninvited guests. She too prefers to stay hidden. If you ask me, staying legally dead doesn’t hold much appeal. But you two seem to have that in common.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Quick question: Do you guys like the length of the chapters so far (about 2000 words), or would you prefer them longer? Right now, I'm just setting everything up, but the next chapter will get more into everything. Let me know in the comments!  
> Feedback prompts faster writing!


	3. Love of my life, gone forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver tracks Felicity down, but what he finds is not what he was expecting – and he did try to prepare himself first.  
> But among the dozens of surprises this new world has given him in the past two days, he does receive at least one good surprise tonight – the first since proposing to Felicity, before this whole mess began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was not cooperating at first. But I finally figured out where to take it, so it's finally finished! And I've started the next one, too, so it shouldn't take too long.  
> (PS, I am working on a follow-up to "I'm Sorry," I promise! I just want it to be good, so I'm taking my time.)  
> Chapter title is from "West Virginia" by The Front Bottoms.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Clad in his old Arrow suit, Oliver stands in the shadows outside the curtained window and watches the silhouette move about the lamp-lit room, staying still for no more than five minutes before moving again.

Waller gave him Felicity’s address, and he was only somewhat surprised to find that she lives not far from her old townhouse before they left together. Only now, she lives in a more secluded, wooded area, slightly bigger than the old one.

He wouldn’t have thought that being a legally dead hacker-for-hire via the NSA would pay that much. But then again, it _is_ Felicity. She’s both the smartest person and hardest worker he knows, so he thinks that it’s safe for him to assume that she probably rose pretty quickly in the ranks.

But that assumption is quickly shattered.

When the car pulls up, Oliver waits for the person to get out, not knowing who to expect. It certainly isn’t the person who gets out.

In retrospect, it makes sense. This world seems to mirror his, but more like if the glass was cracked.

Suddenly, the bigger space makes sense. She doesn’t live alone. She lives with her not-dead college boyfriend.

Oliver staggers back a step, rustling the leaves around him. He watches with bated breath as Cooper – that was his name, right? Oliver had always just tried to just block him from memory; suffice to say, he wasn’t a fan – whipped around and peered into the trees for a minute, looking for the source of the sound. When he decided it must’ve been an animal and walked into the house, door closed behind him, Oliver exhaled.

Felicity is still with him. They must’ve both been taken in by the NSA after Felicity turned herself in. They must’ve gotten back together – or never really broken up – when she found out that he was alive.

The knowledge is like a punch in the gut. Everything about this universe is just _wrong._ Does she work with him in his illegal money-making activities, too?

No, she wouldn’t. Felicity had told Cooper when he kidnapped her that she’d never have done it with him. But . . . that was before, when she had moved on and tried to honor his death by living a normal life – one that she’d thought he’d have been proud of. But if she knew he wasn’t dead, could he have talked her into it? Or were they just working for the NSA, and Felicity had convinced him not to?

There’s still so much he doesn’t know about this reality, and it unnerves him. He can’t just go knock on her door either, because she doesn’t know him here. Even if she knows he’s alive and works with ARGUS – because it’s Felicity, of course she’d know if she had a reason to – she doesn’t _know_ him. She probably just thinks of him as either a dead rich boy or an ex-castaway who does Waller’s dirty work at times.

He needs to learn more about this place before he can come back from the dead. He needs to find out what happened to everyone else. And he needs to find Barry.

* * *

Oliver had left Felicity’s about an hour ago, a lump forming in his throat that hasn’t gone away since watching her kissing Cooper through her – _their,_ he reminds himself – curtains.

He’s now standing outside his childhood home, the Queen Mansion, trying to talk himself into actually revealing himself, when his heart slams to a halt in his chest and his breath catches in his throat.

Standing on the front porch, very much _alive_ , is Tommy.

He’s facing away from Oliver, but he’d know his childhood brother anywhere. He could’ve stood there staring at him for seconds or hours. It felt like time stopped at the sight of his best friend whom he’d had to bury three years ago. He’d _watched him die._ He was with him when his eyes closed for the last time.

Oliver had known it was a possibility, that everyone he’d had to say goodbye to since coming home from Lian Yu could be alive here. He’d had enough experience with time travel to know that the slightest changes affect the world massively. He’d known it before finding out about this new Felicity.

But to actually _see_ Tommy alive, breathing, completely ignorant of Oliver mere yards away, thinking _him_ the long dead one . . . It was enough to make anyone do a double-take.

Tommy’s voice brings him back to reality, and Oliver has to bite down on his lip to keep any gasps trying to come out at bay. He shakes his head just slightly to clear it and looks back at Tommy, who he sees is on the phone.

Oliver strains his head to hear what Tommy’s saying so that he doesn’t have to move closer. He’s so dazed that he’s bound to make too much noise, and he doesn’t want to come out as alive until he knows more about this place. Making a change like that could have consequences he doesn’t even want to consider.

“Yeah, I _know_ you did it for a reason. That doesn’t make it okay by any decent human being’s standards! You will stay the hell away from Thea and me, or I will make sure that every damn news outlet in this country knows that you’re alive.”

Tommy hangs up the phone and finally turns around and faces Oliver. He runs his hands through his hair angrily, then pulls a flask out from his jacket pocket. He hastily unscrews it and takes a long pull, not flinching at the burn of whatever liquid is inside.

Oliver watches in silence as Tommy paces back and forth on the porch, stopping every so often to take a drink.

The wheels instantly start turning in Oliver’s mind. He had to have been talking to Merlyn. But isn’t it 2015? Didn’t the Undertaking happen three years ago now?

The Undertaking . . . which Oliver still must not have been able to stop, even only living as the Hood and not trying to balance a life as Oliver Queen during the day.

Of course he couldn’t stop it, because he didn’t even have Felicity or Digg to help him. The three of them together barely figured out Merlyn’s plan, and they couldn’t stop it. How the hell did he ever think he’d have been able to do it on his own?

 Oliver backtracks to something else Tommy had just said . . . ‘ _Stay the hell away from Thea_.’ So he knows that Thea is his sister.

How did he find out though? Where is his mother? Has she been arrested for her role in the Undertaking? Or did Malcolm manage to have her acquitted here, too?

And where is Walter? Did Malcolm actually have him killed here? How far could he have investigated without Felicity’s help?

* * *

Oliver watches Tommy’s pacing gradually turn into a stagger as he empties the flask. Now that he’s thinking of his mother, he wonders not only what happened to her, but to Thea. He’s assuming she still lives in the mansion, because why else would Tommy be here?

He’d always been like another brother to Thea, but now that he knows how true that is? He’s probably been living here since the Undertaking. It’s clear from his earlier conversation that he isn’t the only one who knows Merlyn was behind it. The city must not be kind to him, knowing he’s the son of the man who killed who knows how many people in _this_ world’s Undertaking.

Thea, though . . .

Does _she_ know Merlyn’s her father – and that he’s alive? Or is Tommy hiding it from her like Oliver had? What has Malcolm been doing to try to contact her?

And does she still have a drug problem? She doesn’t know he’s alive, and if she knows anything about Merlyn being her father or her mother’s part in the Undertaking, it’s bound to have gotten worse.

The more Oliver learns about this place, the more questions he has about it. And because of his stupidly selfish decision to not tell everyone he’s alive, he has no one.

His aloneness reminds him of someone else who’s never managed to find a permanent home.

Suddenly, he remembers Roy. Despite their issues over the years that they were together, Roy really helped Thea in pulling her life together. He doesn’t have to be in hiding here, not having taken the fall as the Arrow for Oliver. But maybe they haven’t even met here.

He remembers that they met when Roy stole from Thea, but for all he knows, it never happened. Or however they got together – he never learned all of the details – has changed. Perhaps they parted ways after.

Or in this mad reality, Oliver hates to even consider it, but is Roy _really_ dead?

The grim thought leaves his mind as quickly as it entered. Oliver can’t let himself ponder every single possibility. He’s wasting time. He needs to get some actual answers.

* * *

Oliver leaves the mansion after he decides that he won’t be able to learn anything new there tonight.

He doesn’t know where else to go to get answers. Waller’s told him all that she will for now, and Verdant isn’t a club, so he won’t find Thea there. Felicity is like a stranger here, so now that he at least knows that she’s alive – a huge weight off of his chest, from the moment he saw her old mini-Cooper in her driveway – he can begrudgingly look elsewhere.

Finally he settles on heading back to the Foundry to try to dig up any information on his mother’s whereabouts as he can. If she did confess or get caught for the Undertaking, there will be a plethora of accurate and inaccurate information online.

When he gets back down in the basement, he thinks again about how cold and lonely this place was, even after Diggle joined the team. It wasn’t until they brought Felicity on and she redesigned it that the place truly felt like their own.

Oliver makes a mental note to at least upgrade the computer system later if he has time – something he’s sure he’ll have, seeing as how he’s still dead to this world, with no knowledge of how to return to his.

When the computer finally boots up, Oliver again has to resort to a much more basic search for his mother than he’d have to if Felicity were involved. But it’s less difficult now, searching for his much more public mother. Thankfully, nothing new comes up associated with him, so he’s assuming that the man who works in Felicity’s old office wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. He’s safe from the Arrow as long as Oliver is safe from the media.

Oliver’s heart has skipped so many beats today that he’s somewhat surprised he hasn’t had a heart attack. He’d tried to warn himself against getting his hopes up. After all, he could only hope for so many miracles, and Felicity and Tommy being alive – though not entirely _okay,_ and he doesn’t even know the full extent of the damage yet – were two very large gifts.

Looking at the computer screen, he’s aggrieved to learn that, without Oliver’s urging her to confess _before_ the Undertaking, Moira confessed due to a guilty conscience _after_ the earthquake destroyed half the city. Whatever Malcolm had done the first time to get her off the hook must not have been enough to persuade the jury here.

Two and a half years ago, his mother was sentenced to death.

Even with all of the horrible alternatives this life has wrought, Oliver still doesn’t regret asking Barry to change the timeline. For Felicity, it’s worth it. Here, she’s alive and – he assumes – happy with Cooper.

Although she’s still living a dangerous lifestyle working for the NSA, here there doesn’t seem to be a target on her back painted by him for Damien Darhk. If she doesn’t associate with him or the Arrow – or the Hood, or whoever he is to this Starling City – then she’s safe for the moment.

Once he learns more about this place and finds Barry, they can work together to get back to the world they left. That is, assuming that he, too, has his memories of going back in time, which he should, given that he has all the other times Oliver’s known him to do it.

But Oliver is quickly learning a lesson about assuming things in this universe. The worst-case scenarios seem to keep happening, and with his luck, he’ll never be able to get home. And when he does, he’s terrified to find what has become of Felicity after messing with the timeline.

Just as Oliver is about to try to contact Barry, his phone rings. He’s not sure who to expect on the other end of the ‘Blocked Caller.’ He answers with a safe but defensive, “Yes?”

The voice on the other end makes his stomach flip, but not with fear.

“Oliver Queen. Care to explain why you were lurking outside my house earlier tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback absolutely makes my day. And makes me write faster!


	4. The wrong things become everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver receives a phone call from a blocked number. He has no idea who to expect, but it's certainly not her.  
> It's everything he's been waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, whatever you celebrated this month, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> This is long overdue. I had planned to have it up on Christmas Eve as a little present, but spending time with my family aside, I was just stuck on where to go with it. But I like how it turned out, so I hope you enjoy.  
> The chapter title is from "Help" by The Front Bottoms.

 

“Care to explain why you were lurking outside my house earlier tonight?”

Oliver freezes at the voice he’d know anywhere.

“Felicity?” he blurts without thinking, forgetting that the voice doesn’t quite belong to the same woman he’s picturing in his head.

“Call me Proxy, Mr. Queen,” she says, steely and businesslike, and it reminds him of when she was his EA and used to call him that. But even though the words are familiar, her tone and the circumstances are so different now.

“Proxy?” Oliver asks, the surprise evident in his voice.

“Yes. With my line of work, going by my real name isn’t exactly smart, is it?”

Oliver’s heart drops to his stomach. She had _told_ him she wanted a codename before Darhk had even learned her real name. But he didn’t take it seriously, because he stubbornly – and stupidly – thought that giving her a codename would make the danger feel more real, closer to her somehow.

But now, after she was first kidnapped and then shot because of her connection to him in the span of 48 hours, he realizes how wrong he was. Instead of keeping her distanced from the danger, he was denying the reality of how involved she already was.

It was something that should’ve been done a long time ago. But he refused to seriously consider it, and it almost cost her her life.

She keeps talking, and he makes himself focus on what she’s saying now. “I have extremely good security for my home. And your ‘secret’ identity isn’t as secret with some government organizations as you’d probably prefer.”

“Amanda Waller told you I was looking for you?” He’s not sure whether to be angry or thank her. On the one hand, she did take care of his dilemma on how to introduce himself to this new Felicity . . .

“Amanda Waller didn’t need to tell me anything. I put two and two together. Genius, remember?” Then, before he can give himself away further with something this Felicity definitely won’t appreciate, she seemingly remembers that they don’t in fact know each other here. “Well, I guess you can’t remember, per say, though if you are stalking me then I suppose it is one of the first things you’d find out about me,” she babbles, and Oliver smiles despite the guard he’d just told himself to put up. At least some things never change, even in alternate universes.

“Anyway,” she continues, sighing in that way that always makes his heart feel way too mushy for someone who’s an ex-assassin and Bratva captain, along with everything else he’s had to do in the last nine years. “I would have found out anyway. You see, Mr. Queen, I’ve been keeping tabs on you for a while now.

This throws Oliver for a second, because if she’s not working with him on his vigilate-ing, then what does she want with him?

“Should I be worried?” he asks, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Thankfully, they’re not acquainted enough here for her to recognize anything. And if it makes his heart fall just a little bit – because she’d always been so good at reading him like a book, even when they’d first met – he pushes it away and listens to her voice instead. It’d been so long since he’d heard it . . . Has he really only been here for two days? It feels so much longer.

“That depends,” she challenges, and he can’t help the slight twinge of arousal at her all too familiar dominating tone.

“On?” he prompts, pushing his feelings down as best he can.

“On if my suspicions of your involvement in the recent HIVE activity in the city are correct.”

The line is dead silent for a minute as he takes in her accusation.

“What?” he finally asks, at a loss as to what she thinks he’d possibly be doing _helping_ the organization that’s terrorizing the city he fights every night to save.

“Don’t play games with me. I’ve been watching you for weeks, and I know you have been meeting up with that two-faced police detective who’s really HIVE’s little lapdog.”

And then it clicks. Felicity must have been looking into HIVE after the ghosts started appearing, found out about Lance secretly working for Darhk, who also works with the Arrow, who she knows he is. So she started watching him along with Lance and HIVE. He assumes. He’s still not sure exactly how similar this world is to his. But it’s the only thing he’s got, so he’s going with it for now.

“Detective Lance works for Darhk to gather inside intel for me so that I can figure out how to take down its leader. His name is Damien Darhk, and he wants to destroy the city. He threatened Lance’s daughter unless he obeyed him.”

“So what? Lance gathers information from Darhk while under his thumb and Lance feeds it to you? Why would Darhk tell him anything?”

“He doesn’t – not completely, anyway. So Lance has to look like he’s committed to HIVE for more than just his daughter. I know how it sounds. I had a hard time believing Captain – I mean, Detective Lance when I first found out about his association with Darhk, too,” Oliver admits, remembering his emotionally charged conversation with the man in question a few months ago. “And I know you don’t trust me. But I’m asking you to. Why would I spend my nights trying to take down crime in this city only to turn around and help destroy it?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound as desperate as he feels for her to believe him.

Felicity is silent for a moment, considering his words. “True. But why would Lance? He’s a detective on the police force. Why would he risk his career getting tangled up with Darhk?” she prompts, still not buying what he’s selling.

“Darhk put a target on his daughter’s back. He was desperate to protect her by any means. Until I found out and confronted him; now he gives me all the information that he gathers so he can still keep his daughter safe until I can take HIVE down. It’s proven much more difficult than either of us anticipated,” Oliver admits.

He hopes he’s right about everything he’s telling Felicity. He wants to get home, but until that happens, he’s stuck here. She’s still the woman he loves, and if she’s not on his side, he doesn’t know what to do.

“I may not trust you, but trust _me_ when I tell you that I’ll be looking further into this, Mr. Queen. If I find out you’re lying to me,” she threatens, and she doesn’t even have to finish it for him to feel a jolt of fear run through him.

Felicity Smoak has the ability to completely destroy someone with wifi and a keyboard, and he just told her things that may not even be close to true here.

His internal panic is interrupted before he can even attempt to defend himself to her. “But I digress,” Felicity says, changing the subject. “You know why I’m watching you, which you weren’t even aware of until I opened my big mouth,” she chastises herself, and he again gets a hint of his Felicity. “Why were _you_ watching _me_ , Mr. Queen?” Her voice is back to business, masking all feeling. It reminds him eerily of himself when he’d just come home.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he says, hoping she’ll let it go until he can find out more about his relationships here.

But this is still Felicity, and she’s stubborn like him, so of course she doesn’t.

“Of course I won’t. As we’ve established, I don’t exactly trust you. But I’d like to give you an opportunity to tell me whatever horrible lie you came up with before I find out the truth on my own.”

Oliver’s mind races, trying to come up with anything believable, but he comes up blank. Before, when he’d tried to give her lame lies, she’d found it amusing. But somehow he doesn’t think this version of Felicity will find it so endearing, especially not when she suspects him of trying to take down the city.

He sighs and says, “I don’t have any lies. But I’m willing to at least try to explain the truth to you if you’ll let me.”

This takes her by surprise. She answers with, “I’ll be at your little lair in twenty. No need to let me in.” He can hear the smirk in her voice, and though it’s supposed to be confident, he swears he hears a hint of teasing underneath it.

* * *

True to her word, Felicity is coming in through the alleyway entrance to the foundry twenty minutes later.

Oliver tries to ignore the way his heart speeds up and wipes his now sweaty palms on the jeans he just changed into, hoping she doesn’t notice.

He couldn’t see more than a silhouette when he was watching her through her curtains earlier. He sees her clearly for the first time, and her appearance shocks him.

Felicity has long, black hair streaked with purple. She’s wearing a black hoodie with the sleeves cut off and the hood up, a black tank top, and black jeans.

Oliver tries to disguise his shock at how _different_ she was before Cooper died. He’d seen some pictures Donna had insisted on embarrassing Felicity with when she’d visited once, but it wasn’t as real. Right now, seeing it in person, he feels like he’s looking at an entirely different person.

But despite the plain strangeness it makes him feel, Oliver knows that if she had never changed her look before they met, he’d have fallen just as hard, just as fast. Because the woman before him is still his Felicity; he knows it in his soul. The soul that belongs just as much to her as it does to him, for she is the one who humanized it again.

He is going to make everything right again.

He is going to bring her back to him, even if he has to change the timeline again and again to do it. She deserves better than a bullet from a masked assassin just for loving Oliver in the light, and she sure as hell deserves more than hiding in the shadows as a dead woman with a man she’d willingly gone to jail for.

Oliver is going to make damn sure that when this whole nightmare was over, she’d be able to live her own life in the light of day.

She steps further into the foundry, and Oliver notices her shoulder. Where the scar from her first bullet wound from protecting Sara should be is a small, but unmistakable tattoo of a canary. It’s black and flying out of a cage. A smile flickers briefly over his lips before she catches it and looks at him questioningly.

“So? You promised me the truth.”

He sighs and gestures to a chair he’d set up across from his. “Yes, and I know you don’t trust me, but I swear to you that it is the truth. You can decide after you hear it whether or not you believe me, but please just hear me out first,” he pleads, sitting after she consents.

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

* * *

“You do realize how insane this sounds, right?” comes Felicity’s inevitable response. He’s just finished explaining everything to her – from their partnership, to him asking Barry (who she’s not acquainted with here) to travel back in time to save her, to why he was lurking outside her house a few hours ago.

Who’s currently gaping at him with a mixture of disbelief and concern, undoubtedly for his sanity.

“I mean, I know that the particle accelerator launch was heavily criticized, but ‘meta-humans?’ Super speed? _Time travel?_ ” Her incredulity increases with each item she names.

“I know. When I first found out about Barry, I had trouble believing it, too. But you know way more about science than me. Is it really that impossible?” he challenges.

She sighs, looking pensive. “Well, no . . . But it’s decades ahead of our time. And how have I never heard of him? If he’s so popular in Central City, shouldn’t I have at least heard of him?” Her doubt, which had started to wane just slightly, returns in full-force.

“I don’t know. Like I said, something went wrong and I’m still trying to figure everything out. I don’t understand all the science behind it, and I have no idea where Barry is. Or why I can remember everything. And everything about this place is so different from the Star City –“ she gives him a confused look “– Starling I remember.”

“Everything about my past is telling me that I shouldn’t believe a word you’ve just told me. But for whatever reason I can’t explain, I believe you.”

He stares at her with pure disbelief. Oliver thought for sure that this Felicity wouldn’t let him get off so easy. But this woman continues to surprise him in the best ways.

“Felicity, I know it’s a lot to take in. But I’ve never been able to lie to you – at least not well,” he says, ignoring the guilt tugging at him as he again omits the secret of William’s existence to her. He needs her to trust him, and he’s afraid that opening up that can of worms will only ruin this tentative trust she’s giving him.

He tells himself that if he ever does make it home, telling Felicity about William will be the first thing he does when she recovers.

The one sitting in front of him sighs, bringing him back to his current reality. “Okay, so if what you’ve just told me is true, then you have a lot of catching up to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope it was worth the wait.  
> Also, the Proxy thing is from [ a post I saw on tumblr regarding Felicity's soon-to-be-revealed code name.](http://snowlicty.tumblr.com/post/133926225587/felicitys-father-theory)  
> Let me know what you thought with a comment!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! I'm super excited about this story. I'm not sure how long it'll be yet, but as long as people want to read it, I wanna write it. So be sure to leave some comments. And if you have any ideas/suggestions, they're always welcome.


End file.
